A to Z

A scholarly approach to Art History or any intellectual discipline, with an emphasis on original research and directed at a specialized informed audience. Or, an artistic style conforming to well-established norms, particularly classical styles ultimately based on the art of Ancient Greece and Rome. Often used in a pejorative sense to indicate boring and unimaginative conformity.

A large work of art with religious subject matter intended to be placed above an altar in a church, usually in the apse or a side-chapel. More likely to be found in Catholic than in Protestant churches which discouraged imagery. Until the end of the Renaissance, they were seldom action pictures but commonly groups of static figures like saints grouped around a Madonna and Child. In the right hands, they can be a powerful stimulus to piety. From the Baroque onward, altarpieces were increasingly dramatic narratives.

Generally, a synonym for “old” in a historical sense. The phrase “the Antique” refers to classical antiquity, the art of ancient Greece and Rome. Admiration for the “Antique” was central to the Renaissance and reached its apogee in the eighteenth century with the taste cultivated by Grand Tourists and the excavation of Pompei. The plural “antiques” refers to “collectables”, that is any artefact from the past that can be bought or sold, for example in antique shops

Kick-started by the designer William Morris, and a reaction against the perceived vulgarity and soulless mechanical qualities of the artistic as opposed to industrial exhibits in the Great Exhibition in London of 1851. It promoted more naturalistic design with a sensitive handling of materials and an integrity of surface pattern. In architecture, it led to less formal buildings which better integrated with the vernacular architecture of the past. Intended to have proletarian overtones of old-fashioned rural craftsmanship but its products, ironically, could only be afforded by the better off.

Symbols by which a historical figure can be identified, usually religious or mythological and no longer familiar to a modern audience. For example, Saint Barbara, imprisoned in a tower, will often be shown holding a model tower. Without some basic knowledge of attributes, pictures with multiple saints can seem frustratingly impenetrable.

The proposed identification of a work of art with a particular artist. In the age of great experts like Bernard Berenson, the science of attribution, based chiefly on style, was highly regarded. More recently, especially in academic circles, it has come under fire as too closely associated with the art trade and fraudulent manipulation, or as too subjective, a mere parlor game. This is clearly nonsense and attributions make a vital contribution to art historical knowledge, especially when supported by documentary or scientific evidence.

A school of landscape painters working in France in the mid-nineteenth century and associated with the village of Barbizon near the forest of Fontainebleau. The biggest names are Jean Francois Millet, Theodore Rousseau and Charles-Francois Daubigny. They are part of the realist side of the Romantic movement and, like their friend Corot, much of their work was painted out of doors. Millet stands a little apart from the others since he is more figurative and he inspired van Gogh’s later pictures of the hardships of rural life. In recent times, Barbizon landscapes have not been as popular as their successors the Impressionists since often seen as too relentlessly green, remote and rural.

An international style associated with European Catholic art in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, that extended to the New World notably South America. It emphasized rhetorical imagery displayed with great virtuosity especially in illusionist ceiling decoration. In the hands of great artists like the sculptor Bernini or the painter Gaulli, it can generate powerful religious feeling and so was aggressively deployed by the Catholic church as a powerful weapon in the fight against Protestantism and the propagation of the true faith. In the nineteenth century the baroque fell out of favor, being regarded as insincere and worldly, but its brushy spontaneity thrilled new collectors brought up on Impressionism in the second half of the last century.

For bon viveurs Benedictine is a make of liqueur but more basically is a monastic order, founded by Saint Benedict in the sixth century AD at Subiaco in the hills near Rome. Benedictines are distinguished by their black habit and so were called the ‘black monks’. They emphasized the solitary life and their monasteries became centers of learning but compared to later itinerant and mendicant orders like the Franciscans (see entry), they came to seem out of touch. Benedictine patronage of the arts was at its height between the sixth and twelfth centuries AD but thereafter declined in relative importance. Their most famous monastic site was Monte Cassino abbey, notoriously reduced to rubble by the allies in World War II.

Paint is made up of dry pigment particles mixed with some sort of adhesive substance, which is known as the binder or the medium. Many materials have been used for this purpose. There are water soluble binders, such as various sorts of animal glues and gums, used both for ephemeral works and for a type of painting on fine linen known as a tüchlein, used by Justus van Ghent, Dürer, and Mantegna, among others. Egg yolk and beaten egg white, called glair, was used by Early Italian painters for works on wood panel and for illuminating manuscripts. In Northern Europe drying oil was preferred because of its translucence and the facility with which it could be blended to achieve more naturalistic effects. In the mid to late fourteenth, oil paint began to be used in Italy as well and was ubiquitous by the early fifteenth century. The two principal types of drying oil used for painting are linseed oil, which dries faster but becomes slightly yellow with age and walnut oil, slower to dry but with more fluid handling, remains colorless. Various materials could be added to alter the properties of the binder: driers, volatile oils, and resins. Unlike aqueous mediums which dry by evaporation, drying oils polymerize over time into a tough, durable film. [DM]

A longitudinal or latitudinal distortion in a panel that increases or decreases due to changes in the relative moisture content of the wood.

See also: Cradle, Panel

A style associated with the Eastern Roman Empire based in Constantinople from around the fifth to sixteenth centuries AD. In architecture, it continues to use the classical round arch.  Churches, the principle category of building to have survived, are sometimes lavishly decorated with mosaics for example in Ravenna on the Adriatic coast of Italy. Byzantine representational art, predominantly religious, is stylized, formal and distant, to bring out the spiritual superiority of those depicted. Early Italian artists in Tuscany such as Duccio, and in Venice such as Paolo Veneziano, used the Byzantine tradition as a springboard for their own totally original inventions. Objets d’art are densely wrought and decorated with precious materials.

A religious order founded in the eleventh century by St. Romauld at the monastery of Camaldoli near Arezzo in the mountains of central Italy. They were much influenced by the Benedictines’ solitary life of meditation and prayer and are distinguished by their white habit. The Florentine late Gothic painter, Lorenzo Monaco, was attached to a Camoldese monastery.

A canon refers to an acceptable standard of style to which everyone should subscribe. Ideas of what is canonical can change but it is a useful term for describing received values within a particular time period, for example the widespread respect for the pure and balanced style of Raphael from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.

The Capuchins, founded in the early sixteenth century, are a more austere branch of the Franciscan monastic order. They renounced personal property and lived by begging. The coffee drink cappuccino is so called because its light brown color is similar to that of a Capuchin friar’s habit. A famous Capuchin church, S. Maria della Concezione, is on the Via Veneto in Rome.

See also: Franciscan

A cassone is a marriage chest, common in the Italian renaissance which was used to store a bride’s clothes and often decorated with suitable subjects from classical mythology or courtly life. The scenes often depicted male power and female virtue. Frequently, they were painted as pairs. Occasionally there is a painting of a nude woman inside the lid. Many have survived though it is rare to find one in perfect condition. Sometimes they are modelled on ancient Roman sarcophagi or burial chests. Today, most cassone panels have been removed from their original chest, and are displayed as independent works of art. They often confused with spalliera panels, which were larger and designed to be set into a wall or to serve as a backboard to a piece of furniture.

A widely used term, most commonly in the context of metalwork. For bronzes, chasing indicates the process of finishing the surface with a chisel (or similar implement) to remove the roughness and blemishes left after casting. It also describes the ornamenting of surfaces of metal objects by incising them with decorative patterns.

See also: Lost wax technique

This is Italian for five hundred but is used as a synonym for the sixteenth century in Italy. So, for example in art history the High Renaissance might be called the “early cinquecento.”

This applies to unattributed works of art executed in the style or circle of a defined artist but painted in his lifetime, e.g. circle of Raphael. It is commonly used in auction catalogs where the cataloger has no clear idea of the artist or has given up in despair trying to find out!

An Italian word for the contrast of light and dark. Made famous by Leonardo da Vinci and his school, it is often applied to the light effects of Caravaggio and his school, where strong light and shade contrasts are used to dramatic effect. Contemporary critics hostile to Caravaggism, sometimes regarded chiaroscuro as a meretricious device for covering up lack of competence in the rendering of the human body.

A broad term which fundamentally implies dependence on the disciplined style of classical (that is ancient) Greece and Rome. It can apply in a variety of contexts from archaeological correctness in subject matter, to strict relief composition, to a general feeling of order and clarity. It was espoused by Raphael, Annibale Carracci and Carlo Maratti and anticipates Neo-classicism in the eighteenth century. Often contrasted with the more spontaneous dynamic and virtuoso style of the Baroque.

This can mean a formal and contractual order given to an artist for the production of a work of art, or a fee charged by an agent in the purchase or sale of a work of art, for example by a dealer or auction house. Such fees are sometimes fixed but very often negotiable the higher the value involved.

The art of visually judging a work of art on grounds of quality, and identifying the artist, school and period. This is a skill that can be developed with practice and requires a retentive memory of previously seen visual evidence. Unfortunately having no natural talent, colloquially called an “eye” is as big an obstacle as being tone deaf in music. In the academic world, connoisseurship has been superseded by Theory which is less object driven.

A copy is a reproduction of an existing work of art, typically painted by another artist. In the case of the same artist copying his /her earlier work, the term ‘version’ often favored, since ‘copy’ typically carries a slight negative connotation to imply a deceit, even though it may not be the intention of the copier.

The Council of Trent was convened by the Catholic Church between 1545 and 1563 at the city of Trent in Northern Italy. It became the engine of the so-called Counter-Reformation which not only addressed the threat from Protestantism but advanced badly needed church reform, notably higher professional standards and better spiritual guidance. Artistically it encouraged a serious and sober style which rejected mannerist artificiality and complexity in favor of narrative clarity and more profound and accessible religious feeling. Emphasis was placed on the history of the church as recorded in the lives of the saints, especially martyrs. The subsequent fashion for the more flamboyant baroque style in the seventeenth century was just another way of trumpeting Tridentine orthodoxy and militancy.

A wooden lattice attached to the reverse of a painting on panel, designed to prevent warping of the wood along the grain and to stabilize it. Based on the concept of the cross-battens that were inserted into grooves in the original panel, the cradle is an eighteenth century French invention, which was widely adopted in the nineteenth and early twentieth century to address the problems of panels that were worm-tunneled, distorted, and split. Before cradling, the original panel was thinned, the splits re-glued, and weakened areas excised and filled with inlays of new wood. Moisture was applied to swell the grain of the original so that it could be flattened, and notched slats glued to the reverse in the direction of the grain. This assembly was put into a press to dry. In a properly made cradle, the moveable strips that were inserted into the fixed members in the direction opposite the grain gave the panel room to expand and contract as it responded to changes in relative humidity.

Wood is a living material: in an unfavorable environment it can move dramatically; the cross-grain cradle members then lock, leading to splits and the compression of the ground and paint layers. In recent years, cradles are often removed to relieve pressure on the original panel. They are replaced by various flexible support systems, which allow the original panel to expand, contract and even warp slightly.[DM]

Skill and diligence in artistic production, more often applied to three-dimensional objects of practical or decorative use than to paintings, where inspiration is more emphasized.  In the middle ages, such skills were taken for granted but by the mid-nineteenth century were seen as compromised by mechanization and factory production. Critics and designers like John Ruskin and William Morris fought to maintain old craft standards, leading to the burgeoning Arts and Crafts movement. Today, traditional craft skills are seen as an antidote to rampant consumerism and the cultural elitism of modern art.

See also: Arts and Crafts movement

A circular wooden plate painted to celebrate the birth of a child in the Italian renaissance period. Some are decorated with coats of arms, others with appropriate figure subjects and only affordable by elite families. One of the most striking is the Triumph of Fame by the Florentine artist Giovanni di ser Giovanni Guidi, known as Scheggia (1406-86) for the birth of Lorenzo de Medici in 1449 (now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York) which was listed among the objects in the prince’s bedroom at the time of his death. The Berlin Tondo (1427-28) attributed to Scheggia’s older brother Masaccio, is considered one of the earliest examples of circular paintings in the Renaissance. On the front it depicts a nativity scene and on the back, a young boy playing with a dog.

A pair of paintings of matching subjects hinged together. They were especially favored in Netherlandish religious painting of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, where a Madonna and Child might be paired with a donor, or the Virgin Mary with the Angel of the Annunciation. Usually they were made small enough to be portable and used for private devotion. Famous earlier examples are the consular diptychs made during the late Roman period of the fourth and fifth centuries AD to record a consul’s taking up office and consisting of two hinged ivory plaques.

The Italian word for drawing, historically applied in the context of works of art that rely heavily on linear qualities and drawing skills. In sixteenth century Italy it was used rather snobbishly by Giorgio Vasari, and others to distinguish central Italian painting, reliant on line and good drawing and epitomized by Raphael and Michelangelo from Venetian artists such as Titian perceived as dependent on more superficial qualities of color and light.

A religious order founded by the Spanish Saint Dominic in early thirteenth century France. Its members wore a black and white habit and were feared as defenders of the faith against heresy and for their role in the Inquisition. Their most famous theologian was Saint Thomas Aquinas who reconciled reason and faith and Aristotelian philosophy with Christianity. Saint Peter Martyr and Savonarola, the Florentine reformer, were also Dominicans as was the sixteenth century artist Fra Angelico who frescoed a series of cells in the Dominican monastery of San Marco in Florence. The Dominicans were celebrated preachers and their principal churches like SS Giovanni e Paolo in Venice were built to accommodate large audiences.

The metallic implications of the term suggest the possibility of decline from gold to metals of inferior value and so the Golden age of Dutch art is used to describe the period in the middle years of the seventeenth century, when Dutch realism reached its most refined and sophisticated peak. In fact, Dutch art of the time was pretty varied but today is seen as achieving its highest embodiment in the serene luminosity of domestic interiors by Vermeer, the self-confident portraits of Frans Hals and the overarching genius of Rembrandt. Rembrandt is obviously part of this scenario but is so universal an artist that he transcends his time and nationality. The artistic Golden Age coincided with Holland’s new-found independence from Spanish rule and a period of great success as a maritime and commercial power.

An ancient technique described by Pliny for painting with beeswax applied with a heated tool. Passages of Fayum portraits are executed in encaustic and can be recognized by the impasto created by the application process. In the 18th century there was a revival of painting with wax, called encaustic, inspired by a popular treatise by the Compte de Caylus, published in 1755 and translated into several languages. Four different wax mediums were described, none of them true encaustic since they all contained other material. Joshua Reynolds describes adding wax his medium and there are several paintings by George Stubbs that are painted entirely with wax and pine resin. [DM]

Associated with works of the Early Italian School, particularly Tuscan, it is a decorative molding that was attached with glue and nails to a flat wooden panel support by the carpenter before any ground has been applied. The ground was subsequently brushed over the entire assemblage. When altarpieces were cut up into individual compartments, the engaged moldings were often pried off leaving a raised area of gesso ground along the perimeter of the paint, commonly known as a barbe, from the French word for beard, because of its shape. Often it abuts a reserve of plain wood that had originally been covered by the molding. The existence of a barbe is an important indication that the scene has not been cut down from its original format. [DM]

A word used to describe the wider dissemination of learning and civilized values in the eighteenth century, particularly in France where Voltaire was its most famous exponent. Artistically it promoted a switch from religious to secular and often worldly subject matter. Not everybody has welcomed this and the great critic Kenneth Clark called the eighteenth century the winter of the imagination.

A Dutch philosopher and Christian humanist often considered the archetypal renaissance scholar. His most famous work is In Praise of Folly. Whilst recognizing the need for reform in the Catholic church, he distanced himself from the more extreme Protestantism of Luther and Calvin. He was an international intellectual celebrity whose likeness was reproduced by major Northern artists such as Holbein, Cranach and Pencz. His visit to Cambridge University boosted its reputation though he complained of the sour wine.

A complex printmaking technique which involved covering a metal plate with a thin layer of  wax, drawing on the wax with a sharp needle called a stylus so that the metal below was exposed and lightly incised, then removing the wax and dipping the plate in acid to deepen the incised lines. The plate was then covered with ink and wiped clean, leaving only the ink in the incised areas. A sheet of paper was then pressed on the plate on which the remaining ink left an image in the reverse sense of the incised design on the plate. This technique, brought to its peak by Rembrandt, produced more subtle effects than engraving which involved working directly on the metal plate with the needle. Printmakers made successive changes to the plate which they printed along the way. These changes are known as States.

A work of art made with intent to deceive, as opposed to a copy or an imitation, which of course in the wrong hands can also be used to deceive. Fakes are usually made of artists particularly fashionable at the time, for example the fake Vermeers made by Han van Meegeren in the 1930s when Vermeer had at last been recognized as a great artist. Many fakers give themselves away through stylistic inconsistencies or mere incompetence. A good scientifically produced fake can be difficult to detect without laboratory analysis, which might for example identify a pigment not in use at the supposed date of the fake in question. Italy produced a number of talented fakers of gothic and renaissance panels such as Icilio Joni. Some fakers, like van Meegeren, are artists whose own work has not found recognition and want to revenge themselves on the art world.

Historically an adjective for Flanders, that is the Southern Netherlands, and the northern part of todays’ Belgium. In the late Middle Ages, it was one of the richest areas in Europe and a hub of commerce and artistic activity. From the sixteenth to eighteenth century it was controlled by Hapsburg Spain and Austria and economically fell behind Holland which achieved independence. The crowning glory of Flemish art is van Eyck’s fifteenth-century Ghent altarpiece, closely followed in time and artistic genius by the works of Roger van der Weyden and Memling and later by Rubens and van Dyck.

An unidentified artist working in the style of an identified one. Obviously, close followers have a less individual style than artists who look to their mentors for more general inspiration. One of the achievements of connoisseurship over the years has been to separate works of followers from the artists they follow, and in some cases give them a definite identity. The term implies greater proximity to the artist than “circle of”.

See also: Connoisseurship

A school of painting developed by King Francis I of France at the Royal Château of Fontainebleau in the first half of the sixteenth century. The leading artists were the Italians Rosso Fiorentino, Francesco Primaticcio and Niccolò dell’Abbate who worked in an elegant artificial style, an extension of early Italian mannerism. A favorite image, often by anonymous artists, was of topless women wearing ornate jewelry and elaborate coiffures. In an age of increasing nationalist absolutism, the courtly elegance of the Fontainebleau school had a pan-European appeal and was disseminated by high quality prints.

The representation of an object, animate or inanimate, from an unusual angle as opposed to strict profile or frontal view. It is a device to dramatize the artist’s command of perspective. This may add to narrative interest and also show off artistic skills especially in drawing. At some periods, for example in Italian sixteenth century mannerism, foreshortening became an end in itself with a focus on technical virtuosity.

A monastic order, founded by St Francis of Assisi in 1209. Members of the order were distinguished by vows of poverty requiring members to beg for food while preaching (see entry for Cappuchin), that is to be both itinerant and mendicant. Their lifestyle was meant to imitate the life of Christ and added greatly to the credibility of the church, always vulnerable to accusations of worldliness. Their habit was dark brown tied with a rope at the waist. St Francis became a favorite subject for artists, notably Giotto in Assisi, or later for Zurbarán in Spain by whom he is shown with almost sinister austerity.

From the Italian word for fresh, it is a Tuscan technique used for wall paintings. In true fresco, a thin final coat of lime plaster, large enough to be painted in a single day, was troweled onto to a rougher plaster undercoat. The painting was executed with pigments ground in water with no additional binder. As the plaster set, the paint is incorporated into the lime. The next day another section of plaster was applied. Often the seams of these giornate, or day’s work, can be seen. The technique is exceptionally durable. The Sistine Ceiling is painted in true fresco. In popular usage, fresco is sometimes used to describe any wall painting, even those painted on dry plaster with pigments bound in various mediums. [DM]

Genre is a French term meaning type or category, but in art history applied to figurative themes of everyday life as opposed to mythological, historical or religious subjects. Genre scenes came into their own in the seventeenth century Netherlands but originated with earlier painters of low life, notably Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Breughel. However, the term is more distinctively applied to distinguish everyday subject matter in a forum or place where it is less predominant, for example in seventeenth century Italy, where it is particularly associated with northern artists domiciled in Rome, or in eighteenth century France. Sometimes religious themes were shown disguised in the language of genre so that they are a tease to identify.

Correctly defined, gesso refers to calcium sulphate, a white ground made from burnt gypsum and a solution of rabbit-skin glue in hot water, carefully mixed in the correct proportions, and brushed in numerous layers onto the surface of a wood panel or spread over a canvas support, usually in just one layer. However, in popular usage “gesso” describes almost any type of white preparation, including the grounds of Early Flemish paintings that are actually made with chalk, and even modern synthetic preparations. [DM]

A layer of dark translucent color painted over a lighter opaque layer and usually containing a high proportion of medium. The most common pigments used for glazes are lake pigments, especially red lakes, copper resinate, ultramarine, raw siena, black, and umbers. A typical example is red lake over vermilion underpaint. There are examples of glazing in egg tempera painting, but it is usually associated with oil painting. A glaze is the final layer to be added and creates depth. It can be as substantial and thick as jam or a mere whisper that creates the illusion of volume as a flesh tone recedes into shadow. Because it is often thinly applied, and sometimes contains resin, it is vulnerable to cleaning damage. [DM]

A colloquial term, common in the art trade primarily used to describe Italian paintings from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries which have gold backgrounds, typically decorated with punch marks called tooling. After the design was transferred to the gesso preparation, a thin layer of bole, an earth color with a high proportion of clay, was brushed over the areas that were to be gilded. After wetting, squares of gold leaf were applied. As soon as the moisture evaporated, the surface was burnished with a smooth hard stone such as agate or with an animal tooth, compressing the metal so that it looked like solid gold. For that reason, it is known as “water gilding” to distinguish it from other types of gilding where an adhesive was used. After the background was gilded and burnished, the paint layers were applied. Often there is a slight overlap.

Long denigrated as “primitives”, gold grounds rose in popularity in the later nineteenth century when they were thought to embody the purest spirit of Italian religious painting and thus became a badge of sophistication for collectors and museums. [DM]

A collection of the lives and legends of saints compiled in the mid-thirteenth century by Jacopo de Voragine, and carefully researched by the standards of the time. It became an attractive source for artists partly because the author was a good story-teller. In more recent times it has proved useful for the interpretation of otherwise arcane subject matter.

A style of European art and architecture from the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries particularly associated with church building. In objets d’art, mostly religious, gothic architectural motifs are used on a small scale to dense and rich effect. In painting and sculpture the term is used generically but survives in more particular terms like International Gothic, used to describe the courtly style of late-fourteenth and early-fifteenth century Italian painting.

A term used to describe an opaque, matte watercolor paint made from pigments bound with gum Arabic to which an inert extender, usually chalk, has been added. Gouache can refer to the medium itself or to the drawings made using it. [DM]

A method of painting with a limited palette, usually black and white, hence the French term for grey. Artists found it useful in working out preliminary ideas and focusing on tonal values without the distraction of color. The technique was sometimes admired as a demonstration of virtuosity by using limited means and as a way of showing that painting was superior to sculpture, which is usually monochromatic.

A form of painted ornamentation popular in the Renaissance and based on surviving examples of recently discovered ancient Roman painting. Many motifs were fanciful and bizarre, sometimes decorative, sometimes figurative. Giovanni da Udine, a pupil of Raphael, was much admired for his skill in this line.

One or more layers applied to a support before painting. It is also sometimes called priming, although the Italian work from it derives, imprimitura, refers to a pigmented coat of sealant over a gesso ground. In different periods and schools, various materials were used. Because of their greater flexibility, oil grounds became popular in Venice for large canvases that had to be rolled. It was also in the period that artists began to add colored pigments to their grounds. In southern Europe in the seventeenth century red grounds predominated, although brown, tan, and gray grounds are also found. The color of the ground, especially when dark, gave an overall tone to the painting and facilitated rapid completion because it could serve as a middle tone. As paintings on dark grounds aged, due to the increasing translucency and change in refractive index of the oil medium, many passages, particularly the shadows, lost detail, a phenomenon known as “sinking.” In reaction to this irreversible alteration, eighteenth century painters reverted to light colored grounds bound with oil. Seventeenth century Northern European painters, particularly in Holland, tended to use canvases prepared with a double ground of red followed by a medium gray final layer. [DM]

Artistic craft and trade organizations which were especially powerful in the Middle Ages and the early modern period. In Florence the painters’ guild was under the umbrella of the Guild of Physicians and Apothecaries. Though they could be restrictive and autocratic, they effectively maintained standards, protected their members from competition, provided welfare benefits, and encouraged long apprenticeships by which skills could be passed down through successive generations. It used to be thought their protective approach held back trade in commercially advanced societies like Holland, but this unfavorable view has now been modified. Guilds were, after the Renaissance, replaced by artists’ associations such as the Company of St. Luke and the Royal Academy.

Adjective used to describe anything related to heraldry. A knowledge of heraldic paraphernalia, such as crests, can be useful in art history, as portraits often bear the coats of arms of their sitters, who can thus be identified.

Term coined by the art historian Jacob Burckhardt in 1855 to define a short period from 1450 to approximately 1527, date of the sack of Rome by the Imperial armies followed by the diaspora of its artists. The period is dominated in Florence and Rome by the three titanic figures of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo and in Venice by the radically opposed achievements of Giorgione and Titian. The harmony of Raphael’s compositions, his sense of disegno, eloquent references to the Antique became models for centuries to come, as did, on another hand, Michelangelo’s powerful terribiltà. Modern art history has shied away from using the term considered too restrictive and limited to the study of a few artists, embracing instead the study of the High Renaissance within a larger context.

Few people would admit not to be humanists, but what a humanist is does not make unanimity. It can be said, however, that in general humanism is an attitude toward life that emphasizes the individual, the non-spiritual or at least non-revelatory nature of things. It is a human quality that is not specifically linked to a single culture: all humanisms however share similar attitudes toward the centrality of the individual, respect for the other, and tolerance of one another. If humanism does not necessarily reject the divine, humanists may question the relationship of the individual to the divinity, or in most cases do not consider the divine an essential element to embrace virtue. In Europe, humanism is linked to the ideals and achievements of the Renaissance. A humanist would typically be a scholar, able to study not only the most available ancient texts, but also to study and compare manuscripts. Philology, an invention of humanism, imposed a rigorous intellectual discipline, which eventually extended to other aspects of personal and intellectual life

In the visual arts, humanism is echoed in the representation of life and of nature. Giotto, said Vasari, was “the pupil of nature.” Boccaccio too saw in Giotto an artist for whom there was “nothing in nature…he could not paint…or make similar to its original in Nature.” A comfortable relationship between the body and its surrounding space informs the architecture of Alberti and Brunelleschi. In Renaissance painting, man is a reality, not an abstraction, and is glorified in the individual portrait. Likewise, in sculpture which, more than any other art, is based on an intellectual notion, that of the classical antique model, the human body is rendered with such conviction that its artificiality disappears behind its presence.

Erwin Panofsky defined “iconography” in the introduction to his “Studies in Iconology” first published in 1939; “Iconography is that branch of the history of art which concerns itself with the subject matter or meaning of works of art, as opposed to their form.” As such, iconography is less concerned by questions of authorship, attribution and style, as practiced contemporaneously by Bernard Berenson. In its most basic form, iconography is the creation or description, deciphering and interpretation of symbolic figures based on classical texts, as in Cesare Ripa’s Iconografia (1593) an illustrated compendium of images used by artists. While Ripa can be called an iconographer, the art historians who developed iconography as a science are not, and would better be described as “iconographists”. A product of German culture and neo-Kantian philosophy, iconography was practiced most famously by Aby Warburg, Fritz Saxl and Erwin Panofsky in Germany, England and the United States, and figured largely in the thinking and analytic methods of Meyer Schapiro in his teaching at Columbia University. Thanks to Aby Warburg’s interest in multi-disciplinary studies, and particularly in the role and function of images, the Warburg Institute was established with Warburg’s substantial wealth first in Hamburg before being transferred to London. A large library, photographic collection (now online) and other facilities continue to support scholarly research.

Illuminated manuscripts are hand-written texts richly—sometimes extravagantly—decorated. Decorations can be enhancements of initial letters, additions to the margins or full-page paintings. The practice of adding ornaments to a written text is an ancient one that, in Europe and the Middle East, flourished particularly between the thirteenth and the sixteenth century. Typically, illuminated manuscripts were executed on parchment made of untanned skins of animals, or on its finer variety, vellum, made of young lamb and calf skins. The majority of early illuminated manuscripts are religious texts and were often produced in monasteries. The popularity of illuminated manuscripts grew rapidly to include secular craftsmen and the development of a widespread trade. Reserved for aristocratic and church elites, illuminated manuscripts, lavishly heightened with gold and expensive pigments, were always considered objects of great value and rarity. Preserved in books, unexposed to light illuminated manuscripts provide important information about the original colors of less well-preserved frescoes and paintings.

Impasto is the texture of a painted surface. Depending on the consistency of the paint, it can be created by a subtle buildup or by dramatic manipulation with stiff brushstrokes. [DM]

The erroneously spelled (the proper spelling would be the Italian Imprimitura) but commonly used noun designates an initial layer of paint applied over white gesso. Usually, but not necessarily, of neutral color such as grey or a green tone called verdaccio, the imprimatura is an essential element in the practice of painting, as it allows the artist to control chromatic values, and to build up the surface of the painting while controlling it.

A series of institutions put in place by the Church to combat heresy. The Inquisition, under different forms according to geography, was active from the twelfth until the mid-nineteenth century. Originally established to fight the Albigensian heresy in Southern France, the Inquisition spread through the Christian world, targeting Jewish and Muslim converts suspected or accused of secretly celebrating the rites of their former faiths, women accused or witchcraft and dissidents of all kinds. A religious establishment at first, it rapidly engaged the help of the states in its endeavor. Books and images were subject to its censorship. The most famous example of an artist having to publicly defend himself is that of Paolo Veronese (1528–1588) who, in 1573, appeared in front of the Venetian tribunal of the Inquisition. Accused of having introduced unsuitable elements—such as a dog—in his painting of the Last Supper, Veronese defended himself, claiming the right for an artist to take poetic licenses. Veronese, nevertheless, changed the subject of his painting and turned it into a Feast in the House of Levi (Venice, Accademia).

The term, coined in the late nineteenth century, is no longer much in use as deemed too generic to cover the art of a vast European area during almost a century. Trough dynastic marriages, artists’ travels, diplomatic gifts, and international trade, a new style developed in the late fourteenth century. This “internationalism” is recognized in the fact that many local characteristics or traditions become less salient, making place to formulas that, although not generic, shared many common traits. The imperial court of Prague, papal court of Avignon and ducal court of Burgundy were among the major centers where the style developed.  Known in Germany as “der weiche Stil” (“soft style”) for the sweet elegance of its figures, it covers artistic personalities as different as the Burgundian sculptor Claus Sluter, the Limbourg Brothers, authors of the Hours of the Duc de Berry, Simone Martini and, later, Lorenzo Monaco.

Infrared reflectography is a technique that uses wavelengths in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum to penetrate through opaque paint layers and reveal otherwise invisible elements of the composition. Infrared light is absorbed by carbon-rich materials and reflected back from light-colored elements such as a white ground. Introduced in the late 1960’s, it was initially successful primarily in revealing underdrawing in Early Netherlandish painting. Increasingly sophisticated sensors using the full range of the infrared spectrum with higher sensitivity and better resolution are now able to reveal other features of a painting, such as pentimenti and underpainted sketches, even on paintings with a darker ground. Infrared captures are acquired in segments as the camera scans the surface of a painting. These are digitally assembled to produce a reflectogram. [DM]

The order of the Society of Jesus was founded by Ignatius of Loyola in 1540, as Protestantism was spreading throughout Northern Europe. While Martin Luther was still alive, the Society embarked in its evangelical mission in an effort not only to limit the progress of the new faith, but also to shore up vigorously Roman Catholicism. While the Society cannot be associated directly with a visual program, it strongly promoted the devotion to sacred images, one of the tenets of the Counter-Reformation. This triggered a proliferation of commissions for the Church in general and Jesuit establishments in particular, attracting such artists as Giovanni Battista Gaulli (1639–1709) or Carlo Maratti (1625–1713). The order itself included several artists of varying fame and accomplishment: Jean Denis Attiret (1702–1768), also known as Wang Zhi Chéng, and Giuseppe Castiglione (1688–1766), both active in China, the Italo-Austrian Andrea Pozzo (1621–1676), author of the ceilings in the Church of St. Ignatius in Rome (1685–1694) and the French Jacques Courtois (1621–1676) . Likewise, the architecture of Jesuit churches often followed the model established by the Church of the Gesù in Rome, copies of, and derivations from, which can be found from the Philippines to Portuguese India and throughout Europe.

Linear perspective is one of several methods used for creating spatial illusion on a flat surface. As an essential tool to represent a subject as the eye sees it, its application, following its discovery attributed to Filippo Brunelleschi, transformed the visual experience in Western art. Linear perspective employs a grid of parallel lines converging to a single vanishing point.

The wax may be lost but the technique, dating back at least 6,000 years, never was. It is a duplicating process that allows the exact reproduction in metal of an original object or sculpture. Lost wax casting is a technique common to nearly all cultures. Bronze is the most common alloy employed, but the process can also be successfully applied to other metals such as gold and silver. The process is simple in its principle but elaborate in its execution: its basic steps are making a mold from a model (such as a clay sculpture), pouring wax into the mold, removing the wax model from its mold, chasing and spruing it (this means adding to the model a system—or tree—of wax ducts that will allow the wax to melt and be replaced by the alloy). The model is then covered with a fire-proof material (clay, for instance), into which the molten metal will eventually be poured, replacing the wax model. The last phase involves removing the metal sculpture from its fire-proof cover. The sprues are removed, and the final object is hand chased.

A lowland region of Northwestern Europe, comprising the three modern countries of Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg (Benelux). Historically, the Low Countries also included at times parts of today’s Northern France and Western Germany. The Low Countries are issued from the Carolingian Empire (800–843). After its disintegration, they were ruled by various lordships and ecclesiastic entities. From 1384 onward, the region was ruled by the House of Valois and was politically attached to the Duchy of Burgundy. In 1477, Mary of Burgundy inherited the duchy whose rule passed at her death in 1482 to her husband, Emperor Maximilian. The Low Countries thus became Habsburg territory. In 1581, the Dutch part of the Low Countries seceded to become the Dutch Republic. Both Habsburg Netherlands and Independent Dutch republic remained so until, in 1795, Napoleon’s occupation of the territories brought dynastic and political changes leading to the modern states of today’s Benelux. Diverse historically and politically, the Northern provinces also adopted Protestantism, while the southern ones remained catholic with significant results in the arts of both Northern and Southern Low Countries. The first decades of the Burgundian rule of the Low Countries coincided with a unique development of wealth, trade, urban life and civility in cities such as Bruges, Ghent, Louvain and Tournai. The achievements of painters such as Hans Memling, Jan van Eyck, Petrus Christus or Rogier van der Weyden remain unsurpassed.  In the seventeenth century, Flanders embraced the Catholic Counter-Reformation which found a formidable expression in the work of Rubens. Meanwhile the Dutch Republic developed its own tradition of commerce and banking, establishing a solid bourgeois society reflected in the portraits of Frans Hals,  the still-lifes  of van Beyeren, the genre scenes of Vermeer, and, in countless view paintings, by an “ecological”  fascination with the horizontal landscape as well as the vast and cloudy skies of the Lowlands.

Former monk and Church Reformer who showed limited interest in the arts—with the exception of his portraits by Lucas Cranach. He was however not as opposed to religious images as Jean Calvin. He inspired great musicians, including Johann Sebastian Bach in the eighteenth century.

Literally “majesty”. A term used to designate a representation of the Virgin in majesty, that is enthroned, holding the Child and surrounded by saints and angels. The three earliest and most celebrated Maestàs were executed by Florentine and Sienese artists within a span of ten years: Giotto’s Ognissanti Madonna (1306–10, Florence, Uffizi),  Duccio’s Maestà painted for the Cathedral of Siena between 1308 and 1311 (Siena, Museo del Duomo), and Simone Martini’s fresco of 1315 (Siena, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo).

Almond shape made by the intersection of two disks of same radius. In early Christian iconography, the shape may contain the image of the Virgin or of Christ. Its meaning, if any, is unknown. Its Latin name, vesica piscis, or fish bladder, does not shed any light on its signification.

An international art movement that originated in Florence in the wake of Michelangelo and flourished between 1520 and the end of the century. Mannerism is marked by a focus on refinement of composition, elegant figures, and unexpected contrast of colors. The style was exemplified by artists such as Rosso Fiorentino, Jacopo Pontormo and Agnolo Bronzino. The “mannerist” style spread throughout Europe following Rosso’s and Niccolo dell’Abbate’s invitation to the French court. Mannerism is best illustrated by the princely art that developed at the courts at Fontainebleau and Prague. The refinement of the “maniera” that gave its name to the movement should not be confused with a “mannered” style—a misinterpretation that has occasionally led to a misunderstanding of the style.  Beside painting and graphic arts, the term can also be applied to architecture and decorative arts. It is now fashionable again and a portrait by Pontormo was for thirteen years the most expensive Old Master painting ever sold at auction.

Adjective meaning “of the Middle Ages” and thus referring to a long period of time beginning with the end of the Roman Empire in about 500 lasting until the end of the Renaissance around 1500.  Medieval times were marked by major political, religious, and cultural upheavals that defined modern Europe. Among the most salient events of the Middles Ages are the formation of political entities throughout Europe, the split of the Church between East and West and the development of Islam in the Middle East. The growing influence of the Church had a profound impact on culture: convents preserved classical culture, Aristotelian philosophy, developed music and the visual arts.

see Binder

Meditation on the inevitability of death is a universally recurrent theme that can be found in antique philosophy, Christian thought, Buddhism and Islam. In the Western visual tradition, a memento mori (literally “remember death”) is a symbolic image representing the passing of time and of mankind’s ultimate fate. Candles that flicker before going out, skulls and flowers that wither are typical components of still-life paintings intended to remind the viewers of their mortality.

The term refers to five orders, the Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites, Augustinians and Servites, that were established in the thirteenth century. As mendicants, the monks from those orders were not attached to a specific convent. The mobility of the mendicant monks, among whom the Dominicans ranked as the most skillful preachers, allowed them to reach a vast audience. On one hand, the popularity of these preachers triggered new devotions and new images. In 1235, for instance, only seven years after Francis of Assisi’s death, the Lucchese Bonaventura Berlinghieri (1228–1274) painted an altarpiece dedicated to the saint and founder of the Franciscan order for his eponymous church in Pescia. On another hand members of Mendicant orders had been traveling to Byzantium where their contacts with the Eastern Church contributed to develop an interest in icons and the role they could play in their evangelical mission. Michele Giambono’s (ca. 1400–ca. 1463) Man of Sorrows at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, features a Dominican monk and a flagellant behind the central figure of the Man of Sorrows, which itself is the interpretation of a Byzantine image, that by the time of Giambono’s painting had been fully absorbed in Catholic iconography.

An artist who practices the art of miniature. Miniatures can be small paintings, mostly but not uniquely portraits, often painted on ivory. Some miniatures were intended to be worn as jewelry, or to be inserted in precious objects such as gold snuff boxes. Miniatures can also be illustrations in illuminated manuscripts, so called because of their small size and exacting execution.

A miniaturist is often considered to be a perfectionist dedicated to his craft and critical of the easy effects achieved by artists working on a large scale. “I’d rather create a miniature painting than a Taj Mahal of a book,” wrote the Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid.

A collection, or the study, of tales particular to a specific culture or religion. As a set of fictional stories, mythology can be either religious or secular, or combine both as does for instance, Graeco-Roman mythology. Typically, myths are stories set in far away, indeed mostly imagined, places and times. Many of them are poetic attempts at explaining the mysteries of nature and the universe or the beginning of mankind, as in Ovid’s first book of the Metamorphoses, or the first chapters of Genesis. A good knowledge of classical mythology was essential for Renaissance scholars, poets and artists and provided an endless repertoire of subjects. Taken literally, mythology could suggest beautiful and mindless images but its stories could also be used in a more sophisticated manner and provide parallels with Christian culture or philosophical topoi.  From the Renaissance onwards, mythology and mythological figures were also frequently used as allegories of political power, or personifications of public figures.

An extension of the Realist movement in art. The two words have often been used indifferently to describe the same philosophical and aesthetic positions. While it may not be wrong to describe certain aspects of Dutch seventeenth painting as “naturalist”, the term is most useful in regard to late nineteenth century art, as it is paralleled in literature and implies social empathy, even political engagement. Impressionists, admirers of Courbet, saw themselves as realists for painting what was in front of their eyes. Naturalist painters may not have witnessed directly the scenes they painted but professed a deep sympathy for them.

An aesthetic movement that swept Europe (and America) from the middle of the eighteenth century until well into the nineteenth. Neo-classicism affected painting, sculpture, architecture and the decorative arts. Its origin is broadly credited to the writings on aesthetic of the German thinker Johann Winkelman who promoted a return to the study and imitation of the Antique—as opposed to the billowing imagination of the late Baroque and Rococo periods. Contemporary with the Enlightenment, the neo-classical movement benefited from as much as it participated in the current of new ideas that were formulated in the writings of the contemporary French and English philosophers (Hume, Rousseau) and writers such as Goethe. Also contemporary with the French Revolution which styled itself partly after a recreation of the Roman Republic, Neo-Classicism in painting found its most austere and political expression in the work of Jacques-Louis David. The movement has been the subject of intense scholarship in the late twentieth century, leading to numerous publications and exhibitions.

The second part of the Christian Bible, the New Testament comprises the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, Epistles of Paul and others, and the Book of Revelation. There is little agreement as to when those various texts were written. Their compilation in various languages, including Syriac and Coptic, was already established in the later part of the second century. The New Testament, essentially the Gospels and, to a lesser degree, the Book of Revelation provided countless subjects for artists and painters from the late Antiquity until today.  While Roman Catholicism embraced the widest array of subjects illustrating the life of Christ, the Byzantine tradition, followed by the Eastern Orthodox Church, favored a more limited choice of images, and emphasized specific devotions, notably to angels and to the Virgin Mary.

Pigments bound with a drying oil, such as linseed oil or walnut, although poppy seed oil was also used. It dries not by evaporation but by a complex process of polymerization, which takes place over many decades, eventually imparting an enamel-like depth and translucence. Long thought to be an invention of Jan van Eyck, the use of drying oils was known for centuries, but it was the Flemish artist who fully exploited its possibilities. Until the invention of the collapsible paint tube in 1841, dry pigments had to be ground by hand into the viscous binder and the paint stored in animal bladders where it could last for many months. Its properties could be varied by adding various ingredients to speed up or retard the drying time, thin the paint, or create texture. Oil paint can be used to create innumerable effects, from the glassy surfaces of French Academic paintings to the high impasto favored by Van Gogh who used paint directly from the tube. It is a durable material when fully dry but certain precautions must to be taken to avoid contraction or wrinkling of the film while drying. [DM]

First part of the Christian Bible incorporating the twenty-four books of the Hebrew Bible. The Catholic Bible contains forty-six books (thirty-nine in the Protestant Bible, and forty-nine in the Greek Orthodox Bible). The Old Testament is one of the largest sources of  religious iconography. Its various books, starting with the story of the Creation in Genesis are filled with heroes and heroines, tales of conquests, battles, enslavement, and other wondrous events which provided an endless source of images for artists. Officially, the Old Testament was to be understood as a premonition of the New Testament and of the fulfillment of the Judaic tradition in Christianity. Not every painter or patron, however, followed this orthodoxy, and stories such as those of “Eve” or “Susannah and the Elders”, in particular, allowed artists to represent nude female figures without censorship.

Artistic movement, particularly vigorous in the nineteenth century, devoted to the depiction of daily life in the Middle East (from the Balkans to India). Many orientalist painters traveled to the Middle East or Egypt, where some even set up studios. Orientalist paintings display on one hand an imaginary vision of their subjects and are executed, on the other hand, with exacting realism (objects, fabrics, architecture, etc.). Gérôme, its most famous and best exponent, introduced erotic elements in his images of women’s baths and slave markets. Considered by modern critics as an adjunct of, or participant in, colonialism, Orientalism has been the target of contemporary writers such as Edward Saïd.

Panels made from various types of wood were the principal supports for paintings until the early sixteenth century when canvas began to supersede it. In northern Europe panels are usually made from oak, while in the south many different species were used, poplar particularly, especially in Central Italy, but also walnut, clear pine, cypress, linden, maple, some fruit woods and, later, mahogany. Panels were made from seasoned wood, from trees that had been felled often a decade earlier. Their stability is affected by the way the trunk was originally sawn. Boards varied in size: poplar could be as wide as 30 inches and 4 to 5 inches thick. They were joined together with casein adhesive to form large panels. Some woods are more prone to insect infestation than others. Oak panels have proven to be among the most sturdy; a hard wood, resistant to wood worm, oak supports are thinner and usually have a beveled edge. The quality of their manufacture was controlled by strict guild regulations in Germany and the Netherlands. Oak is also the only wood that can be dated by means of dendrochronology to the exact year the tree was cut down. [DM]

The word pentimento is derived from the Italian pentirsi, which means to repent or change one’s mind.  Pentimento is a change made by an artist during the process of painting. Due to increased translucency acquired by oil paint as it ages, pentimenti can sometimes be seen with the naked eye. Examination with imaging techniques, especially x-radiography and infrared reflectography often reveal or make clearer these changes in the underlayers. [DM]

Perspective achieved for Western visual arts what Bechamel sauce did for French cuisine. It created its essential component. It is the art of creating the illusion of a believable three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface such as a panel, a canvas or a piece of paper, using one or more vanishing points which lead the eye from the front to the back of the painted scene. The correct use of perspective was considered one of the great achievements of the Renaissance.

Term much in use in the formalist criticism of Clement Greenberg, whose theoretical writings, much in favor in the 1960’s and ‘70’s. Because paintings are done on a flat surface—the “picture plane”—he encouraged artists to make their works as flat as possible, that is, non-illusionistic.

A study of small dimension made in open air (as opposed to being painted in an artist’s studio). The practice is old, and examples of plein-air painting can be found in the seventeenth century. It was however in the early nineteenth century that plein-air painting became ubiquitous, with the works of French, British, German and Scandinavian painters. Plein-air sketches are often associated with the Grand Tour, with such favorite subjects as the cascatelle at Tivoli or views of the Roman campagna. While there is historical and visual evidence that plein-air painting was a well-developed practice, not all nineteenth century landscape paintings were done out of doors: plein-air painting became in fact, more a genre than a particular way of painting. Plein-air was particularly well-illustrated in the works of Pierre Henri de Valenciennes, Nicolas Bertin, Simon Denis, John Constable or Martin Rørbye, to name but a few. Later in the nineteenth century, the Impressionist painters established their fame on painting out-of-doors, even though many of their most elaborate paintings were, at least partially, executed in their studios, in a manner that many critics described as “sketchy”.

A large altarpiece comprising more than three panels. Polyptychs are usually painted on wood but can also be only sculptural. While triptychs are relatively simple constructions that allow the central, or main, image to be concealed by hinged side panels (wings), polyptychs are far more complex structures that allow combinations and displays of images according to liturgical needs.  Jan van Eyck’s ( 1395–1441) altarpiece of the Mystical Lamb (1422) in the Cathedral of St. Bavo in Ghent is a prime example of such mechanism, only  surpassed in complexity by Matthias Grünewald’s (ca. 1475–1528) Isenheim altarpiece (1512–16, Colmar, Musée Unterlinden), whose panels openings and closings create multiple narrative possibilities. Veit Stoss’ (1450–1533) Polyptych in the basilica of St. Mary in Cracow (1489), technically a triptych, but with numerous superposed scenes, is considered the most accomplished three-dimensional polyptych and Stoss’ masterpiece.

Pouncing or spolvero is derived from the Italian word polvere, literally meaning ‘dust.’ The term is used to describe the method of transferring a composition to the preparation of a panel, canvas or plaster. A final drawing for a painting is made on a cartoon, composed of multiple sheets of paper so that it is the same size as the support. The outlines and major features are pierced with a sharp instrument, leaving a series of tiny holes. The cartoon is then placed over the support, fixed along the edges with some temporary adhesive, and charcoal dust contained in a small sack is ‘pounced’ through the holes leaving a dotted outline. The cartoon is carefully removed and the dots connected with a more permanent medium, either liquid or dry, and the charcoal residue blown away. Just enough clings to the gesso that these little dots, because they are carbon based, can be seen in infrared images. [DM]

The base upon which an altarpiece is displayed. Predellas are usually divided in smaller panels or sections featuring narrative scenes related ichnographically to the main image of the altarpiece. The predella of Giotto’s Maestà (q.v.) is one of the earliest known predellas. The custom of including them disappeared in the middle sixteenth century, as altarpieces became more primarily focused on their main central images and were displayed in architectural settings that did not necessitate the visual and iconographic transition afforded by the predella.

An art movement that came to the fore of aesthetic debates in the second part of nineteenth century England. At the origin of the Pre-Raphaelites were a group of seven painters who broke away from the teachings of the Royal Academy. Calling themselves a brotherhood—a word that evoked the guilds of the medieval era—the group was founded in 1848 by John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt. It preached a return to a style influenced by the Italian Quattrocento, before Raphael whom the seven “Brothers” accused of having corrupted the original purity of his predecessors. In their desire to reform art, the painters who signed their works with their names followed by the initials PRB, indicating their adhesion to the “Brotherhood”, were encouraged by the theoretical writings of John Ruskin. In spite of the interest and success they obtained, their work also created controversy. Millais’ Christ in the House of his Parents (1850) was, for instance, famously attacked by Charles Dickens who objected to its lack of decorum and the plain character of its figures. The original Brotherhood dissolved by 1853, but the movement continued to attract artists who subscribed to the group’s principles: Ford Madox Ford, E. Burne-Jones, John William Waterhouse are but a few among the many Pre-Raphaelite painters (the movement included sculptors, weavers and ceramicists as well). As years went by, Pre-Raphaelism—which lasted well into the later years of the nineteenth century and even the first years of the twentieth—became to be considered a part of the broader European Symbolist movement. However, its originality, use of subjects drawn from English literature and folklore, as well as its stylistic innovations can only be understood, in a British context.

Created in 1663 under the reign of Louis XIV, the Prix de Rome (“Rome prize”) was awarded to qualified and promising young painters and sculptors (later joined by architects and musicians), all pupils of the Académie Royale (called Académie des Beaux-Arts after 1816). Recipients were invited to spend three to five years in Rome as “pensionnaires” of the French Académie, first located in the Palazzo Mancini on the Corso, and after the Revolution at the Villa Medici, on the Pincio. The scholarship enabled the younger artists to perfect their skills and to measure their achievements against those of artists of the past. The Prix de Rome was rooted in the classical academic tradition. Its winners were usually assured of success with the Salon’s juries and, for the most part, led well-rewarded official careers. The status of the Prix de Rome was amended over the years, notably in 1816 to allow painters of “historical landscape” to compete. In spite of such attempts to embrace new trends, the Prix de Rome, as a tool of the Académie was criticized in the nineteenth century. Independent artists, in the wake of the Romantic and Realist movements, were largely opposed to the Prize’s strict rules and limitations.  In spite of criticism, the institution survived well into the twentieth century only to be suppressed in 1968 by André Malraux, then French Minister of Culture. Since then, a less rigid system of admission allows younger artists to benefit from shorter stays at the Villa Medici.

An art word joke goes as follows. A collector asks a dealer: “Tell me, what is the providence of this painting?”, to which his wife says “No, darling, it is the provenance.”

Provenance is in fact a growing specialty within the field of art history. It is the documentation of a work of art through its mention in archives: inventories, descriptions of collections, wills and marriage contracts, etc. A work proven to have belonged to an enlightened aristocrat, or a famous collector, even though that cannot count as a certificate of authenticity, lends the work a prestigious aura. Increasingly, museums and collectors are particularly attentive to the previous stories of works—their provenance—not the least to establish that their past is clear and that they can be legally traded. In recent years, because of laws adopted by most European countries, a great deal of provenance research has concentrated on scrutinizing the whereabouts of art works during and after World War II.

Punchwork or tooling is the general term used to describe the decoration of water gilding with various sorts of patterns. A punch is a metal stamp with a motif on its tip. There are a large variety of designs, from a simple indentation, circles and half circles of various sizes, which could be combined to form more complex designs, to complete motifs such as a rosette, star, or trefoil arch. These stamped designs were accompanied by other impressions made in the gold by incising. This work had to be done at just the right moment when there was just enough humidity in the bole/gold. If too damp, the punch sank in, while if too dry, only a shallow impression was made. The tooling and punching created sparkle in the already shiny burnished gold and liveliness as the shifting light of the candles played over the surface.

Tooled backgrounds were often further embellished with glazes or layers of opaque paint that were subsequently partly scraped off to form a design. This technique is called sgraffito and was brought to a high state of refinement by painters of the fourteenth and fifteenth century Sienese school such as Simone Martini, Bartolomeo Bulgarini, and Giovanni di Paolo. [DM]

Raking light is the illumination of a painted image from an angle very close to the very surface of the canvas. Raking light can be used by painters as a technique to dramatically enhance the subject of a painting. Caravaggio and his followers made ample use of this technique which, pushed to its theatrical extreme, can also be seen in Surrealist paintings, notably by Yves Tanguy and Salvador Dali.

Raking light is also a technique used by restorers to analyze the surface of painting: a strong light projected from the side onto the surface of a canvas may reveal important technical details such as pentimenti or repentirs, cupping, craquelure and deterioration of the surface.

Artistic current of the late nineteenth century with a predilection for the depiction of realistic, and often socially significant, subjects. Akin to Emile Zola’s realism in literature, realist artists were attracted to images of poverty (urchins, beggars) and social alienation (factories, mines, scenes of prostitutions) which, after having been encased in golden frames and exhibited at the Salon, decorated the residences of the very people who had inflicted such evils on society.

Fearing idolatry, the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century altered profoundly the relationship of a great portion of the Christian world to images. Although not opposed to images, Martin Luther was nonetheless suspicious of their power on people’s imagination. Churches recently converted to the new religion were often stripped of their paintings and sculptures and traditional decorations, paintings in particular. A few subjects were tolerated, even encouraged: Christ on the cross, the Last Supper, St. John the Baptist, Illustrations of fine Lutheran doctrinal points. Lucas Cranach, an early follower and friend of Luther became the Reformation’s semi-official artist. More radical reformers, however, opposed the display of images. John Calvin, in particular, took a strong stance against art in places of worship.

Waves of iconoclasm punctuate the story of the Reformation, more often performed by Calvinists against Lutheran churches than by Protestants against Catholic ones. Iconoclasm was particularly stringent in England after the establishment of the Reformed Church.  One of the main results of the change of attitude toward images was the function of artists, craftsmen (embroiders, silversmiths, et al.) working for the Church. Deprived of their traditional patronage, artists had to adapt themselves to the new political and religious situation. Some left their country and emigrated to catholic ones; more often, they found in print making a new and flourishing market. As Protestantism was still controversially fighting for its right to exist, propaganda in the form of illustrated broadsheets, books and pamphlets became a source of income for many artists, printers and publishers. The development of woodcut in Germany at the time (and the invention of the movable type) revolutionized a whole section of art making and of the art market. Painters continued nonetheless to strive, adopting new subjects: Calvinist Holland saw the first development in Europe of an art market for paintings of still-lifes, marital harmony and portraits glorifying the Protestant ethics and the riches it generated.

A legal process having for its goal to return spoiled artifacts to its rightful owners. Looting cultural property has often been the result—and sometimes the cause—of wars. In 1648, in one of the last events of the Thirty Years war, the Swedish armies invaded Prague and looted the celebrated collections of Rudolph II. Bronzes by Adriaen de Vries, paintings and fine decorative arts, were forcibly transferred to Stockholm, where many remain to this day. Paintings became the property of Queen Christina who took them to Rome. They were eventually sold and dispersed. The brutal dismantling of the Imperial collections remained one of the most shocking episodes in the history of thefts of cultural goods until Napoleon’s conquests of Europe which were accompanied by systematic looting of the occupied countries. Napoleon’s actions triggered a strong reaction on the part of the occupied countries which, after the Treatise of Vienna, claimed their right to their properties and demanded their return. Protracted negotiations were partially successful, although many works remained in France where they are still displayed in both Parisian and Provincial museums. At the same time, Lord Elgin was acquiring the Parthenon marbles which he sold to the British Museum in 1816. Both the removal of the Parthenon sculptures and the Napoleonic looting of Europe contributed to the questioning of the ethicality of war appropriation.  It was however only the Hague Convention of 1907 that codified international rules intended to prevent looting, but without much success. Looting of cultural property—an particularly of Jewish property—by Nazi Germany and the restitution of stolen works during the conflict has been the subject of countless and protracted law suits in the later twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, leading to rightful and spectacular restitutions, with the notorious exception of works looted by the Red Army that the Soviet and Russian governments have refused to restitute. More recently, the debate on restitution has shifted to the Colonialist era and the ownership of objects acquired—bought or “appropriated”—in countries under European rules. Notable examples include the Benin bronzes, the majority of which are kept at the British Museum, and African art currently displayed in French and Belgian museums. The unrest and unsolved political upheavals in the Middle East and the occupation of countries by foreign troops, have also favored illegal archaeological excavations, and trade of looted museum artifacts, which authorities seek to return to their original countries and institutions.

As a period in the history of Europe, the Renaissance covers a time span of two centuries, the fifteenth and sixteenth century, with antecedents reaching back to the thirteenth, and consequences well into modern times. The Renaissance is also a movement of ideas, promoting, or linked to, multiple and often related contemporary historical events: the rediscovery and interpretation of antique philosophy, letters and culture; a development of interest in science and nature; the invention of the printing press; a curiosity for the world beyond its known limits; the Reformation; the end of the Byzantine Empire and a profound transformation in the ways of representing both nature and the human form, among many others. Traditionally considered a European phenomenon, enabled by the development of commerce and urbanization, the concept of Renaissance should be extended to other world cultures, notably that of its counterpart in contemporary Central Asia, the Timurid Empire of Tamerlan. The word, derived from the Italian Rinascenta did not enter the literature of art until the mid-nineteenth century and has been often used to describe successful attempts at improving, changing, or reforming established rules. Implied in the term is a suggestion or rebirth, rejuvenation and progress.

The term, used to describe the art and architecture of the late Baroque era, is rarely used for being too broad in modern Italian, French or English culture history, but has retained its currency in Germany. Rococo is an ornate style that was widespread throughout Europe from the 1730’s onward. Its manifestations are as varied as the countries where it flourished. It can be broadly defined as a development of the Barocchetto, a light, toned-down and graceful version of the Baroque, but the word itself derived from rocaille, was originally coined to describe the exuberant decorative embellishments of the new style, particularly in architecture and the decorative arts. Indeed, some of the greatest accomplishments of the Rococo style are the stucco work and ornaments of Cuvilliés’ pavilion at Amalienburg (1734–79), the design and execution of South German churches (Wies, Ettal), or Balthasar Neumann’s Kaisersaal (1749–51) at the Würzburg Residence. In painting, rococo evokes light-hearted compositions and pleasant subjects—sometimes with erotic overtones. The term could apply equally to Guardi’s capriccios, Boucher’s mythological compositions or Jean-François de Troy’s genre scenes. In England, Thomas Chippendale’s designs for furniture betray a taste for unexpected and fanciful shapes that fully belong to the rococo aesthetic. The taste for this kind of decorative style was short-lived and was soon criticized, particularly in France, by “enlightened” critics (Diderot among them), who promoted a new style considered less superficial, and morally superior.

See also: Neo-Classical

Romanesque art covers a period ranging from about 1000 to 1200. The term is used essentially in connection with sculpture and architecture which have survived better than painting. Romanesque monuments were erected throughout Europe, from Ireland to Scandinavia, Serbia, France, Italy and Spain. Although local traditions affected the external and internal appearance of buildings in different regions, Romanesque architecture and sculpture display common traits traceable to late Antique and Byzantine prototypes. Much Romanesque painting has disappeared because of climatic conditions, exposure to light or humidity, renovations, and iconoclasm. Our knowledge of Romanesque painting is nonetheless informed by well-preserved manuscripts and a fair amount of still extant original works in situ. Known decorations, such as the one at Saint-Savin in the French Pyrenees, typically follow an iconographic model established in Byzantine churches, with a central representation of Christ surrounded by the Virgin, the Apostles, local saints and representations from the Old and New testament, as well as of the Last Judgment. Romanesque illuminations reveal a broader set of sources, including earlier English and Irish models.

Romanticism is the most widespread intellectual movement of the nineteenth century. Affecting literature and philosophy, the visual arts, music and politics, it found its protagonists all over Europe. Although it may be more appropriate to speak of specific romantic movements than of romanticism as a whole, it was nevertheless a global phenomenon that drew on many elements present in previous trends, including neo-classicism. To complicate the matter further, Romanticism did not occur at the same time in various countries. In Germany, Sturm und Drang predated neo-classicism: Goethe’s Werther—arguably the first “romantic” novel—was written six years before Iphigenie in Tauris. Likewise, the revival of medieval and Renaissance history in French art (the “Troubadour” style) and literature (Victor Hugo) was unheard of in France but had been a constant in English and German culture. Romantic writers and painters alike shared a common fascination for the “exotic” cultures of India, Persia, the Middle East and North Africa. Goethe worked on his adaption of the writings of the Persian Poet Hafez between 1818 and 1829. Three years later, the year Goethe died, Eugène Delacroix embarked on a tour of North Africa.

The individual, the sublime, man’s destiny, the uncontrollable forces of nature are but a few themes that fed the imagination of the Romantic generation. In many ways these subjects were linked to political thinking. The end of the monarchy in France, the Napoleonic wars, the fight for national independence did more than provide subjects for illustrations of personal struggle and public heroism. They questioned the role, position and responsibility of the artist within society. The notion of the “artiste engagé” begins at that time and subsists to this day.

Also called tondo, a roundel is a small circular painting but the term can also be applied to stained glass or architecture, while the term tondo is restricted to painting. A roundel can be part of a larger altarpiece, whereas a tondo is self-sufficient.

See also: Tondo

A member of the Royal Academy, an institution founded in 1768 by edict of George III. Sir Joshua Reynolds was made its first director. The Academy has been in operation ever since. Its membership is limited to eighty elected practicing artists who are governors of the Academy. Since 1789, The Academy has held a yearly Summer Exhibition featuring the works of its members. It runs also an important exhibition program on a variety of subjects ranging from antiquity to the present days.

One of the many appellations to describe a work that evokes so closely the creation of a known artist, that, although anonymous – and perhaps condemned to remain so – it deserves to be, almost symbolically or magically, brought into that artist’s orbit. The term is often used in sales catalogue, even though it may not be the seller’s first choice.

See also: Studio of, Workshop

Series are works of art conceived as a suite, or ensemble, of paintings (but also prints, photographs) on a single theme or subject. Series are of two kinds: Monet’s paintings of Haystacks, Rouen Cathedrals, Poplars, or Andy Warhol’s Campbell Soup Cans and Portraits of Marilyn Monroe are among the most radical examples of “serial painting” in modern art and are variations on a single subject. The second kind, by contrast could be Poussin’s illustrations of the Sacraments conceived as a series (or ensemble) of different, but thematically related subjects, meant to be seen together.

The parts of electromagnetic spectrum used for viewing and studying art, range from the shortest wavelength, x-rays under 1nm; ultraviolet rays from 1-400nm; visible light from 400-700nm; and infrared rays from 700 to 2500nm. [DM]

A work of art, often a painting but also a sculpture or a photograph representing specimens from nature—such as flowers, fruit, vegetables, dead game, separated from their natural or original context. Still lifes can also include man-made objects, pottery, glass silver etc. A tree rooted in the ground, a flower blooming in a garden or a deer running wild cannot be considered as components of a still-life. Representations of harvested goods or dead game go back to ancient times but usually in a semi-religious context. Roman frescoes found at Pompeii however are among the first—and finest—representations of harvested goods painted for their intrinsic beauty. Decoration of medieval illuminated manuscripts often include in their margins elaborate and finely executed single flowers or decorative vegetal elements. While still life painting developed in all European countries, painting still life developed with particular strength in Northern Europe, Flanders and Holland as well as in Spain. Although considerably gifted French (Chardin) and Italian artists specialized in this genre, the French Academy, for instance, considered the practice of still life painting a minor achievement compared to that of “history painting” which required more imagination and knowledge on the part of the artist. The tradition of still life painting remained strong through the eighteenth and nineteenth century: Women painters such as Anne Vallayer-Coster (1744—1818) achieved particular fame in this genre in the late eighteenth century, while painters such as Courbet, followed by the Impressionists, gave new vigor to the genre in the late nineteenth century. Still life was of particular interest to the cubists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque who introduced collage in their compositions. Some other great practitioners of the genre in the twentieth century include Giorgio Morandi (1890–1964) and Wayne Thiebaud (b. 1920).

A wooden frame for stretching canvas taut so that it can be primed and painted. There are usually cross bars, depending on the size of the stretcher. The expandable stretcher whose corners can be keyed out to adjust the tension of the canvas first appeared in the late eighteenth century. Canvas are fixed to the sides of the stretcher with nails, tacks or in modern times, staples. This is known as “the tacking edge.” Before the invention of the stretcher, canvases were mounted on strainers, whose corners were fixed. The canvas could be nailed either to the sides of the strainer or to the front, which was then covered by a decorative molding and became the frame. [DM]

This term has several meanings. After all the discolored varnish, retouches, and repaints have been removed during cleaning, a painting is sometimes said to be in its “stripped” state. It also refers to paintings that have been so strongly cleaned that they have lost their final modelling. [DM]

Stucco has been used since ancient times. It is a material made variously of gypsum or lime plasters, sand, marble dust, chalk, water, and other materials. It has a relatively short working time and sets by oxidation of the lime or gypsum plaster component. It has been used to create bas reliefs, either by pressing the stucco into a mold or by carving it by hand. In the eighteenth century, rooms and church interiors were decorated with elaborate rococo ornamentation created by specialized artists using molds for some of the simpler elements such as moldings and casts for larger features, such as putti, angels, and other major three-dimensional features. [DM]

A term used to describe a work of art executed in the studio, and possibly under the direction, of an established artist. The term is broadly used in catalogues to designate, anonymous paintings which cannot be attributed to the definite master him/herself.  It is often used as a synonym for “workshop of”, although the latter may imply a closer supervision by, perhaps even a collaboration with, the artist in whose studio the work was executed.

See also: Workshop

Many materials have been used as supports for paintings. The most common are wood panels, canvases made of various textiles and weaves, paper, and copper but slate, semi-precious stones, mirrors, and parchment. Beginning in the early twentieth century synthetic supports made of pressed wood and paper were also popular. [DM]

One of the most important literary and artistic movements of the twentieth century, having as its spokesman the French poet André Breton. The word “surrealism” is credited to Guillaume Apollinaire in a text written in 1917. Breton’s First Manifesto of Surrealism was published in 1924. It promoted the apparently incoherent unleashing of words and juxtaposition of images leading to a new concept of reality. Surrealism’s immediate appeal was due to its similarity with contemporary avant-garde concerns, including Freud’s theory of the unconscious, and in politics, the rise of idealist communism in the Soviet Union. Originally an essentially literary movement, Surrealism promptly embraced the innovations of artists who found visual equivalents to the elements of chance and automatism central to Surrealist poetry in automatic drawings (“exquisite corpses”), “frottage”, decalcomania and other innovative techniques.  While Breton himself made collages and constructions, a host of artists—some originally part of the Zurich-based Dada group—rallied under the Surrealist banner and strove to establish a new formal language: Hans Arp, Francis Picabia, Salvador Dali, Yves Tanguy, André Masson, all artists with strong singular personalities eventually joined the Surrealist movements, occasionally exhibiting together. Already regrouping artists of various backgrounds, the movements became even more international when artists like Chirico, Brauner, and Magritte affiliated themselves with its goals. Bridging figuration and abstraction, Surrealism became a point of reference for all artists active between the two wars, and beyond. With the mediatic figure of Marcel Duchamp, also loosely attached to the movement, Surrealism established its own brand of Surrealism in the United States, where it influenced Pop Artists of the 1960’s.

A loosely organized literary and artistic movement that originated with a group of French poets in the late nineteenth century which spread to painting and theatre and influenced the European and American literatures of the twentieth century to varying degrees. The movement gained credence with the 1886 publication of Jean Moréas’ manifesto in Le Figaro which emphasized subjectivity and the expression of an idea over a realistic description of the natural world. Symbolism is commonly viewed as a reaction to the supposed rationalism and materialism that had come to dominate Western European culture.

The Symbolists often worked independently with varying aesthetic goals. Rather than sharing a common artistic style, they were unified by a distain and weariness of the profligacy of modern society. The movement took particular hold in Northern Europe and includes visual artists such as Paul Gauguin, Gustave Moreau, Gustav Klimt, Odilon Redon, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Henri Fantin-Latour, Gaston Bussière, Edvard Munch, and Fernand Khnopff. Some leading literary figures include Paul Verlaine, Stéphane Mallarmé, Charles Baudelaire, Maurice Materlinck, Arthur Rimaud, and Joris-Karl Huysmans.

Tempera can refer either to a painting in egg tempera medium, or it is sometimes used as shorthand for distemper, paintings on linen, also known as tüchleins, created with pigments ground in water and bound with animal glue or gum. [DM]

A style that favors particularly theatrical effect. The term was used in early literature on Caravaggio and his followers but has since fallen out of use for being too vague. Its dramatic effects can be compared to the widely used chiaroscuro technique. Tenebrism, however, tends to be used to describe the paintings of artists working in a more extreme and theatrical manner. Spanish artists in particular.

A circular painting, usually of a religious subject such as a Madonna and Child with Angels. This format was especially popular in fifteenth-century Florence.

A work of art, usually—but not necessarily—a religious painting, made of three components hinged together. The central panel is typically devoted to the main subject (Annunciation, Crucifixion) while the representations on the side panels, often of saints and donors, are indirectly related to the triptych’s central image. The format, particularly favored by Northern artists from the fifteenth century onward, was universal in Christian art since the Byzantine era. Among the most famous triptychs are the Merode Altarpiece by Robert Campin (ca. 1422, New York, The Cloisters) and Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights (ca. 1490 – 1510, Madrid, Museo del Prado). Some of the most spectacular sculpted triptychs occur in German late Medieval art (Tilman Riemenschneider, The Holy Blood Altarpiece, ca. 1501-1505, Rothenburg, Jakobskirche). Twentieth century artists (Max Beckmann, Francis Bacon) have revived the format for non-religious subjects.

Some may argue that trompe l’oeil (“deceive the eye”) is, literally, the oldest trick in the book. Ancient authors tell the stories of painters Zeuxis and Parrhasius vying to produce paintings of such realism that they could not be told from their models and would fool the public. Trompe l’oeil is an optical technique perfected to present not only objects with intense realism but to also give images the illusion of inhabiting a three-dimensional space. If Zeuxis’ skill was lost through the Middle-Ages, illusionism came back into the Western visual tradition with the discovery of the laws of perspective. Jacopo de Barbari (1460–1516) is credited with the first trompe l’oeil painting, a still life of partridge and gauntlets, dated 1504 (Munich, Alte Pinakothek). The Dutch artist Cornelis Norbertus Gysbrechts (ca. 1630–1675), mostly active in Denmark, specialized in trompe l’oeil still-lifes and the technique was also taken up later by Louis-Léopold Boilly (1761–1845). The illusionistic paintings of John Peto (1854–1907) and William Harnett (1848–1892) in the United States are considered among the genre’s most achieved examples. In spite of these artists who, among others, contributed to elevate the technique to a full-fledged genre, trompe l’oeil is often considered, because of its popularity and debased use, with condescension as a mere curiosity.

Any discussion of trompe l’oeil should mention its application to large decorations, such as the Baroque illusionistic ceilings of Giovanni Battista Gaulli (1639–1709) and Andrea Pozzo (1642–1709) in the churches of the Gesù (1679) and of S. Ignazio (1685) in Rome.

Drawing is invariably the first stage of making a painting and refers to those underlying elements which are executed in ink, charcoal, or some sort of colored chalk. Some underdrawing is highly elaborate and occasionally elements such as hatching in the shadows were meant to be seen as part of the final image. It can be freehand or traced from an intermediate drawing. In other cases, it is quite summary. Advances in imaging in the past few years have revealed the use of underdrawing in works by artists who were traditionally thought to have foregone this stage of creation and begun with an underpainted sketch, such as Caravaggio. [DM]

A Latin phrase meaning: “As in painting, so is poetry.”  Although it may sound anodyne, the phrase triggered heated debates in the Renaissance and Baroque eras. What was at stake was the superiority of one art over the other. Is painting superior to poetry, or vice-versa? The question is in any case a difficult one to answer, and would require at least a firm explanation of what superiority consists in. Horatius coined the phrase which immediately triggered questions and interpretations. The art of the paragone practiced as a verbal or written joust was the perfect format for philosophers and indeed, poets to discuss the point and display their dexterity at building arguments and using words. Ultimately, after centuries of different—or not—opinions, everyone following Lessing seems to agree that both were different arts and well worthy of our admiration.

Utrecht Caravaggism designates a style adopted by a small group of Dutch artists strongly influenced by Caravaggio.  All of them, with the exception of Matthias Stom of whom neither place of birth or death is known, were born in the largely Catholic city of Utrecht, and went at a young age to Rome, where they rapidly established themselves as prominent participants in the international art community. Treating a repertoire ranging from single figures to genre scenes and religious composition, they enjoyed the patronage of some of the most distinguished Roman collectors. Utrecht Caravaggist compositions are marked not only by a dramatic use of chiaroscuro but also, and particularly in its secular subjects, by vivid colors. By 1625, most of the group’s protagonists, Gerrit van Honthorst, Jan van Bijlert, Dirck van Baburen, Hendrick ter Brugghen were back in Utrecht (Matthias Stom, who had arrived later than the older painters probably remained in Italy for the rest of his life). Their later careers often show a distancing from their early adoption of Caravaggesque formulas.

Ultraviolet radiation, a shorter and more energetic wavelength on the electromagnetic spectrum, causes certain materials to fluoresce a characteristic color. Aged resins exhibit a greenish fluorescence, shellac looks orange, glue somewhat blue, and certain pigments have a characteristic fluorescence that allows them to be identified without further scientific analysis. Red madder, for example, turns brilliant pink in UV light. In conservation it is used to check the progress of varnish removal during cleaning, and to identify retouches which do not fluoresce but reflect the blue-black light of the UV sources. [DM]

Term related to linear perspective (q.v.). It is the sedentary place, from which the viewer is considering his subject.  A vantage point can be moved upwards or downwards, but not sideways.

Italian for “views”, and more specifically “view paintings”.  Since the Renaissance, painters often introduced views of actual cities in the background of their paintings. Vedute, however are representations of cities not as backgrounds for historical or genre scenes, but instead for themselves. The genre became a trademark of Venetian painters in the eighteenth century, with Guardi, Canaletto and Bellotto in particular achieving excellence and success. Linked to the development of travel and of the Grand Tour, vedute paintings were appreciated and collected both by local amateurs and travelers, eager to take home souvenirs of their journeys abroad.

Wet in wet, also known as alla prima, refers to the practice of applying fresh paint over under layers that are not fully dry. The consistency of the paint must be fairly pastose and contain enough medium that it doesn’t dry too quickly. Over the initial lay in, more paint is added and the layers can be incorporated into one another using a stiff bristle brush, often creating multi-colored swirls of impasto. It requires rapid execution and is prized for its spontaneity. [DM]

The wings or side panels are the moving parts of a polyptych (q.v.)

See also: Triptych

Also called xylography, woodcut is the oldest form of printmaking. It was known in Tang Dynasty China, before the eighth century of our era. In Europe, woodcuts became particularly popular in Renaissance Germany. A woodcut is a print made from a block of pearwood upon which the image has been drawn (or transferred). A specialized wood cutter then uses a gouge to cut away thee parts of the design that will not be inked. The block is eventually placed on a press; a sheet of moistened paper is put onto the inked surface of the block and is roller pressed.

Chiaroscuro woodcuts are made using at least two blocks printed in different colors. Imitating monochrome paintings, they became popular in sixteenth century Germany and Italy where they appeared only a few years apart. Mantegna’s Triumph of Julius Caesar is sometimes considered the earliest example of woodcut (ca. 1470 – 1500), while Lucas Cranach the Elder and Hans Burgkmair the Elder were vying to be recognized as the earliest artist having used the technique in Germany (ca. 1508-09). Chiaroscuro woodcuts were also popular with Northern Mannerist artists such as Hendrick Goltzius. They enjoyed success in the eighteenth century, particularly in the chiaroscuros of John Baptist Jackson (1701–1780) after the Venetian Renaissance masters.

More recently, woodcut making was revived and embraced by the German Expressionists in the first part of the twentieth century, as well as by more contemporary German artists such as A.R. Penck and Georg Baselitz.

The notion of the artist in his studio battling with his demons, talking to God, and emerging from self-inflicted conflicts with a masterpiece in his hand, is a late Romantic—not to say Hollywoodian—image. For centuries, painting was a painstaking craft patiently learned. It was also often a cooperative practice. In Rubens’ studio, artists were employed for their particular ability to paint specific details: still-lifes, animals etc. Workshop practices, although often referred to, remain somewhat mysterious. How free were the artists employed by a great master to improvise or innovate? To describe a large painting by Le Brun or Rubens as by those artists and their workshops is not demoting them but describing more accurately how these paintings were produced. A painting simply called “workshop of” indicates a work done by an artist in close proximity to the original painter, and possibly with his participation. Contemporary artists, such as Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst or Jeff Koons have revived studio practice to a new level.

See also: Studio of

X-rays are short, high energy wavelengths than can penetrate through all the layers of a painting. The image produced, a radiograph, essentially maps the distribution of pigments containing lead, such as lead white, and to a lesser degree, other heavy elements such as mercury-based vermilion, that x-rays cannot pass through. Radiographs are useful for identifying pentimenti, studying the canvas weave and distortions along the tacking margins that indicating the original size, examining brushwork, and recording paint losses.

A newer imaging technique called MA-XRF mapping uses X-rays to ionize the atoms in a paint film, which emit radiation characteristic of certain elements. The data from metallic elements associated with certain pigments is used to create a map of their distribution. The ability to isolate mercury, for example, the principal component of vermilion, copper, contained in several blue pigments, particularly azurite, or iron, a constituent of earth pigments, renders images that provide more selective information about the artist’s process. Pentimenti are more clearly revealed as well lost detail in passages painted with a pigment that has altered and become illegible. [DM]